Rain
by fariesteed
Summary: Post Dead and Gone. A little rain changes things. One shot.


TA/N These characters belong to Charlaine Harris. They just keep playing in my head!

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It had been two weeks since Niall had closed the gateways between his world and mine. I was… recovering, for lack of a better word. My body was healing, thanks to Eric's blood. My mind was trailing my body. I hadn't been an easily spooked child, seeing monsters under my bed and in the closet, but I saw shadows now.

I was never really left alone. Daytime, I knew that shifters or Weres wandered the woods around my house. I had started back at work last week, just half days, while my physical and mental strength built back. At night, it was shifters or Weres and usually a vampire that protected me. I knew it was Eric's doing, that I was not unguarded. They didn't intrude on my privacy though; at one time I would have exploded at feeling so managed, but now I actually felt safer. If the night watch vampire was Pam, she would come in and sit, watch TV or a DVD with me, and just talk. She told me that Bill was continuing to heal 'normally', as if there was anything normal about being stabbed and bitten with silver teeth. It would be some time before I could see him, she said, but never committed to how long that might be. Eric had started coming over every second or third night. Pam stayed and watched him very carefully the first night. I wondered just how badly he had been hurt in the battle to have needed her blood to repair the damage. I just couldn't ask him, not yet.

Eric would also watch TV with me, and then sit in the living room or sometimes in the slipper chair in my room and read when I went to sleep. He made no moves to get in the bed with me, and I was grateful – right now he was a comforting protective watchdog for me; but I flinched anytime I was touched, even by him.

When I heard the knock on the door tonight I knew it was Eric. I opened the door to let him in, but instead of walking through, he held out his hand to me.

"It's a nice night, lover, come and sit outside with me."

I took a deep breath and his hand and went outside, but I knew he could feel me shaking. I hadn't spent much time outdoors since the fairies had grabbed me in my own backyard. I still didn't know what happed to the rest of the fairies, if Dermot was still out and after me… We sat in the metal lawn chairs he must have taken out of the tool shed, and I watched him look up at the stars. He was definitely too much vampire for the lawn chairs Amelia and I had bought at Wal-Mart. The metal creaked under him, but he held back any comments. He seemed oddly meditative for a vampire – not quite in downtime, but peaceful. I let some of his peace wash over me and felt it flow through our bond.

I relaxed in inches and looked around the yard. The pile of weeds I had pulled out of Gran's cannas was still there, left over from the day I had killed Murray. The lawn needed mowing, the weeding needed to be finished, and the containers that Gran had always filled with petunias sat empty. It hadn't rained in about three weeks, so the plants that had made their way up were sad-looking. The garden hose still lay where I had left it after I had sprayed Murray's remains away. I sighed.

"I wish I could feel comfortable outside in the daytime," I told Eric. "I need to do yard work."

"And tan," he replied. "I miss the smell of sunshine on your skin."

Well, that too. We sat for a while more, and then I told him I was sleepy. He led me back to the house, and locked the door behind us. I went and washed up, changed into an oversized Fangtasia t-shirt, and went to bed. Eric stayed in the living room. I felt safe with him in the house and drifted off to sleep.

I

woke up about 2:00 in the morning, and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. Eric glowed from the living room, and I felt his eyes on me. I got a glass down from the cabinet, and went over to the sink to fill it. As I turned on the faucet, I glanced out the window over the sink. The memory of Murray's face as I looked up from weeding filled my mind. It was followed closely by the terror I felt when Neave had grabbed me almost from my own door step. My backyard seemed to belong to the fairies and the bad memories of what they had done. I shuddered and Eric was at my side in the same instant, arms around me, making me feel secure. I let him lead me back to the bedroom. He tucked me into bed and sat in the chair, watching while I fell asleep.

I woke after dawn to the sound of rain on the tin roof of the house. At least the farmers and gardeners would be happy. Gran always said that rain was better than a hose for making things grow. I let the sound lull me back to sleep and was shocked to wake up again to sunshine and the sound of lawn mowers and trimmers. I dressed quickly in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and looked out the living room window. Sure enough a pickup truck and a trailer were parked in front of the house, each with signs for Jasper's Lawn Service. Eric or his day man must have been on the phone first thing this morning. The front yard was already mowed and trimmed and the backyard was in progress. Jasper Howe's wife, Jenny, was picking up piles of weeds and putting them in a big garbage can to haul off. She'd already done all of the flower beds. They must have started working as soon as the rain dried, and I must have slept like the dead to have not heard any of it.

I unlocked the back door and walked through the porch and to the back stairs and offered some lemonade to Jenny. "No, hon, we have water and tea in the jugs on the trailer. Thanks, though." The crew kept working and was finished about 3:00. Their departure was followed immediately by the arrival of the Home Depot truck from Shreveport. It was the same crew that had replaced my door after the takeover. This time they unloaded beautiful wood lounge chairs and tables. Eric.

They asked where I wanted them in the yard. I put on some shoes and went to the backyard, having them place the furniture where I could sit and see the flowers. They set everything up, and as they were leaving, I turned quickly to go back in the house. Even with the shifter watching in the woods (a panther maybe?), I didn't want to be outside. As I turned past the driveway I saw a riot of color that was out of place. The edge of the driveway and several feet of lawn past the edge were covered in pansies – blue, purple, yellow, white, red. It was a rainbow of pansies.

Pansies. Gran had always called them Fairy Faces, with the happy expressions they seemed to have. Fairy Faces. What had she known? Everywhere I had sprayed the Fairy dust that was Murray's remains, there were now pansies. I didn't know what to think.

In the part of the yard where Quinn and Bill had fought and spilled blood was a Bleeding Heart, carefully edged by Jasper's crew. I backed up until my legs touched against a new lounger and sat down. The yard had been refreshed, cleansed of the bad things by the rain.

Gran was right; everything did grow better with rain. If such beauty could come out of such horror with just a little rain, maybe there was hope for me, too.

I went inside to wait for dark and for my Viking, waiting for him to cover me like rain.


End file.
